In the existing art, when a person calls a customer service center from a landline or wireless telephone, the customer service center can receive the person's phone number through well known caller ID (automatic number identification (ANI)) techniques. Conveniently, the customer service center can then look up the person's phone number in a back-end database to determine information about the person (such as name, address, account information, etc.) and can use that information in assisting the person.
In some cases, for instance, the customer service center might use the calling phone number to determine the type of telephone that the person is operating, in order to assist the person with issues related to that telephone. This may occur, for example, in a cellular telephone system, where a carrier might operate a customer service center to which subscribers can call in order to get assistance with use of their cell phones.
When a cellular subscriber calls the customer service center, the center may retrieve the subscriber's phone number (e.g., “mobile directory number” (MDN)) through use of caller-ID or user input and may then query a back-end database to find out the electronic serial number (ESN) of the calling phone. In turn, the center may query another back-end database to determine the make (e.g., manufacturer), model and configuration of the cell phone that has that serial number. With this knowledge, a customer service operator can then readily assist the caller with issues related to use of the cell phone.